


Right Where You Are (That's Where I Am)

by Lonely_Heart119



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, Love Confessions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26172289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonely_Heart119/pseuds/Lonely_Heart119
Summary: Veth is happier now, freer and more vibrant than she's ever been. It's a stupid sort of dishonesty to pull away like he has.
Relationships: Nott | Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 16
Kudos: 78





	Right Where You Are (That's Where I Am)

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place some time in the near, unspecified future after Travelercon. All previous in-universe canon applies.
> 
> There's some very minor canon typical violence here. There's also a touch of angst, particularly regarding Caleb’s CPTSD. Reader be aware.

Caleb is a methodical man. 

Before bed, on top of the dresser made of peculiar purple wood, he lays each piece of clothing on top of one another.

He is sleeping in his room in the Xhorhaus.

_(First, his trousers. Sleek black slim-legged things. They did not have holes in them yet.)_

No. He is standing in his room in the Xhorhaus. Standing and thinking.

_(Then, his undershirt. Plain, fraying and white.)_

Thinking of war, the trampled-upon blue and black faces of death littered across a battlefield’s length.

_(Next, his socks. If he had the luxury of them. Frugality first by necessity, then habit.)_

Of Essek, the traitorous criminal. And then the traitorous throb of pain that constricts his heart within his chest.

_(After that, he folds his tunic, tucking the split of fabric into itself.)_

Of his parents. Always his parents.

_(Done with this, the neat pile is then shuffled close to where his boots are sitting and his coat is hanging.)_

Of Veth. Though she no longer occupies that urgent, panicked space in his mind she did when they were dashing through forests and bedding down in haylofts, she still laid claim to many of his waking thoughts.

_(The process of unclasping his component pouch from his belt and thumbing open the buckles of his spellbook holsters is by rote, and they sit on his bedside table within reaching distance if he were to somehow need them in the night.)_

The rest of the Nein too occupy him. Gods do they occupy him, with mostly benign and wholly cherished headaches of their own doing.

_(He walks around the perimeter of the room, twisting in fine looping gestures a line of thin silver thread along the walls and windows, taking care around the closed door.)_

_Alarm_ in place, he climbs into bed, wincing at the coldness of the sheets. Leaning over to snuff out the only lit candle, he shuts his eyes the exact moment the room is plunged into darkness.

A holdover from his childhood. Some Zemnian folk thing, perhaps part of a fable. He tries to recount as many retellings of his favorite as he can, willing away the first surge of painful memories.

He keeps up this balancing act until the moment he drifts off to sleep.

~

He wakes up to nothing. That is to say, no malingering fear or underarm sweat that would betray his common set of nightmares. It is such a pleasant feeling, this nothingness, that he holds onto it for as long as it takes him to dress and walk to the kitchen.

He is so used to seeing Caduceus’ tall frame and green silken robes that he is momentarily taken aback by the state of the room. The counters are filled with an array of meat and dairy product, among them bowls and utensils of varying sizes and shapes. 

There are a number of chairs pushed against the countertops in a row, and standing atop one in the far corner is Veth.

“ _Guten Morgen_ ,” he offers.

“Ah! Caleb!” She jumps a little and turns towards him. The front of her frock, knee length and crimson red, is flecked with some type of powder.

“You are cooking breakfast.” He thinks at the last second that phrasing this in a questioning way might seem rude, so it comes out flat.

“Well,” she starts, whirling around to pick up a small ceramic bowl and start whisking away at it, “I thought since Caduceus isn’t here, I could make a little something for you all.”

He eyes the hunk of pork, big enough to feed a tavernful. And the eggs, probably three dozen of them.

“Only a little, eh?” Teasing was a long atrophied social working to Caleb, but he had found flexing this particular muscle less painful than others. A raise of the eyebrow here, a glint in the eye there. It could be done.

Veth beams, unabashed and a little wicked. Her teeth are very neat and straight in her mouth, two white rows. He has stopped being unnerved by the sight of them quicker than he thought he would.

“Isn’t it wonderful? I mean, I love Deucy and all, but...” she trails off meaningfully. 

“ _Ja_ , I know what you mean.” One could tire of oat and wheatgrass porridges.

She’s picking up speed with the whisk and scattering more powder on herself. He notices the dress she’s wearing has a wide emerald block of fabric around the bottom of it, set with thin gold filigree formed into large teardrop shapes. Embroidered within the shapes are countless red stitches, overlapping one another and creating a pleasing looking texture.

“That dress is very beautiful.”

She blushes, not bothering to hide her pleased smile. Caleb simply looks at her. Compliments are easy with Veth.

Yet another thing he was unearthing from himself. He surely was piecing together the ossified remains of his identity one positive interaction at a time.

“Thank you. It’s been a long time since I’ve worn this one.” And her tone has a shimmer to it, a sweet mingling of relief and joy that almost touches Caleb’s bones. She’s looking at him meaningfully, but he still doesn’t know what to give back to her.

They haven’t spoken about it. Not _really_.

Her transformation.

But then she’s gone back to work, and as she sets up a place to cut the meat, Caleb can see why the chairs are placed just so. She walks nimbly along them, rightways to grab a large cleaver from the sharp objects block - it can't just be a knife block if there are also daggers and bolts in it, he supposes.

She steps back leftways without so much as a glance downwards. Caleb watches for a few moments, feels a little useless.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“You can start cracking eggs.”

He starts cracking eggs. Though the first one makes a mess. The shell is much thinner than he thought it would be. Veth _tsks_ at him.

“You better shape up, Widogast. I don’t wanna have to _Mage Hand_ all the little bits ‘n things out of there.”

“It is a learning curve.”

The next eleven eggs are better. Before he can start mixing them, Veth is sending him into their pantry to grab something. When he returns, she is bent halfway into the open mouth of the stove. She wriggles back out and her dress now sports a large sooty smear. She smiles at Caleb. It is only a little chagrined.

“Could you use your wizardly powers to light this?”

“Of course.”

A flick of the wrist, and then a little bit of heaving on both their parts to shut and click the latch of the heavy oven door.

Five minutes later, still waiting for it to heat, a set of quick thumps travel down the stairs and around the walls of the kitchen. Beau’s head pops past the doorway, dark knot of hair first. 

“Wha-” her eyes widen, skim past the counters.

“Oh fuck yeah!” Her unrestrained joy almost makes Caleb chuckle.

“It won’t be ready for a bit, so don’t get too excited,” Veth says, wiping something on her dress. The ingredients in the bowl she’s still carrying have turned into a thick goop that sticks to her fingers as she tastes it.

“It’s cool, we’re gonna go get a quick workout in anyway.” As if on queue, a much slower set of thumping noises descend the stairs, seeming to head towards the front door. Beau smiles short and sharp, disappearing from view. A few seconds later, a jingling chime rings out.

They end up having to push the dining room tables together to fit everything, and even then there’s some overflow. Trays of bacon, bowls of scrambled egg, platefuls of large soft doughcakes, little bowls of yogurt and crumbly granola as well as full pitchers of milk dot the tables, laid over with a soft blue tablecloth. 

It looks amazing. Veth stands over it, moving cutlery around just so. When Beau skips in, a winded-looking Fjord in tow, she makes an unholy noise. She taps Fjord on the shoulder twice in quick succession.

“Go wake Jes and Yasha.” He groans but follows her order, jogging out of the room.

When they’re all sitting together, grabbing and handling the bowls and plates, passing the food around until everyone’s got a little bit of everything, Caleb looks at Veth. She’s at the head of the table, watching the rest of the Nein as they chat and eat.

Beau, sandwiched between Jester and Yasha, devouring her eggs like a starved woman. Jester, heaping yogurt onto her doughcake and wrapping it up to lift and attack the whole thing sideways. Yasha, brow creased in intrigue after every sip of milk. Fjord, on his fourth serving of bacon and not seeming to have any indication of slowing. Veth lingers between all of them, settling last on Caleb.

Her smile is genuine and wide, but tense, like she’s pressing her lips together hard. Her brows are upturned, her eyes big and shiny as she simply…

...looks. He feels very exposed.

She mouths something to him. It looks like _thank you_ but he can’t be sure.

He has the feeling that much more has happened this morning than breakfast. Something had settled itself inside of Veth, made itself comfortable. Perhaps it was familiar, or maybe it was brand new.

His lacking emotional toolkit was never so apparent than in moments like these.

An expansive and foreign feeling starts to creep up inside him. It scares him mightily, so he suppresses it.

~

Caleb’s head is a whirlpool of pain. The concept of thought is far beyond his grasp, simply sensing and perceiving too harsh a task to take. It is the sort of confusing, spiraling hurt that seems to have no beginning or end to it. A black and white symphony of invisible sparks swims behind his eyelids, which he cannot unclench.

He finds focus in his own breathing, feeling his chest rise and fall and jitters of bright pain dance through his ribs with each inhalation. He holds onto the rhythm of it, begins counting.

_Eins._

There is a sharp ringing in both his ears.

_Zwei._

He is lying on the ground, flat on his back. It only makes sense, and as far as thoughts go in this blinding pain it is simple and sensible, so he holds onto it as well.

_Drei._

The ringing is taking on an odd, bell-like quality, reverberating around his skull. His disorientation is fading.

_Vier._

The pain, on the other hand, is not. It’s worsening. Gods, has it always been so hard to lift his arms? Trying to raise his left hand is like trying to raise a house from its foundation.

_Fünf._

His legs are throbbing. A deep, drum-like beat of misery that pummels its way up his hips and stomach, branches out over his chest and neck and arms. The shock of it steals the breath from him, and he stops counting.

Magnificent. Exquisite. The only words for the pain he’s experiencing, so terribly strong that it warps their positivity into something dark and malignant. It is pain beyond conception.

He has gone too long without a breath, so his lungs decide to take one for him. It brings a fresh wave of agony. Where was he in his counting? It’s almost too much to try and remember.

_Sechs._

The ringing is gone, but it’s too hard to focus on anything else. A rushing sound, like a shock of thunder, zips over him and strikes something hard. Or it must have, to make such an appalling noise.

_Sieben._

He forces his eyes open out of a pure and urgent need to experience anything other than the pain.

_Acht._

The sky above is a slate of grey, as if every cloud had coalesced into one supermassive agent. Soft, fat drops of water are pelting his cheeks.

_Neun._

He is not a religious man, but he grasps for the gods anyway, in what must be the most blind and pathetic way.

_Zehn._

_Please,_ he thinks. _Melora. Sarenrae. Corellon. Raven Queen. Please._ In what way he is begging for an abatement to the pain, he cannot say, but he is begging.

_Elf._

If he were capable of humor in this moment, he might have found it funny that even standing on the edge of the cliff of life, the shadow of his self-loathing still looms large at his shoulder.

_Zwölf._

Helpless tears of pain track their way down his temples as he shudders in another horrible breath.

_Please._

Something suddenly obscures part of his vision. It’s Fjord’s grim, determined face, leaning over him.

“Hold still, Cay.” He’s holding Caleb’s chin, and for a delirious moment he thinks the man means to kiss him. But Fjord is butting one black claw against Caleb’s lips, just enough to part them and tip the glass vial he’s holding vertical, pouring liquid down Caleb’s throat. 

The choice is to choke or swallow, so Caleb gulps it down. It is bitterly medicinal, like mugwort crossed with peppermint. At once, the liquid seems to settle in his stomach but also bypass it, weaving its way around his bloodstream.

A potion. Of course.

After a blessed moment to savor the abatement of his mortal injuries, Caleb breathes deep. While it feels like his organs are no longer in a critical state, and his bones no longer shattered, a sick and heavy malaise slinks around the strain of his muscles. 

He must have also been hit in the head, or fell on a rock, because the headache isn’t abating. It would be just like him to survive this but succumb later to some nebulous brain injury.

Fjord must feel like Caleb is going to be okay, because between one thought and the next he’s gone from sight. Free from the blinding pain, Caleb can now focus on the sounds of skirmish around him. The crack of Beau’s staff, the meaty whump of her fists. The crackle of magic, both protective and aggressive. The _ka-thunk_! of Nott’s - _Veth’s_ , his brain corrects - crossbow mechanism as it fires a bolt. The angry, wet sounds of death.

It is by no means a comforting lullaby. But the heaviness in his body is too great. The swimming of his brain in his skull feels like a blanket over his consciousness. Though he fights it, his vision eventually darkens and he closes his eyes. 

_Just for a second,_ he tells himself.

~

He awakens in his own bed. For a split second, he thinks he might have imagined or dreamed the whole terrible ordeal, but one shifting movement and the following thread of shooting pain absolves him of the notion.

Caduceus is also standing at his beside, so there’s that as well. He doesn’t think Caduceus has ever been in his room before. One of the firbolg’s large gray ears twitches and he straightens from whatever he’s fiddling with on Caleb’s beside table.

“Hello, Caleb.”

“ _Hallo_ , Caduceus.” His own voice comes out rough, full of gravel.

“You took quite the beating.”

It requires a great deal of effort to speak, so Caleb settles on a less polite but not outright rude grunt of acknowledgement. Caduceus doesn’t seem bothered.

“There’s a lot magic can fix. A lot that it can heal.” He leans over Caleb now, cupping a bowl of piece-y looking liquid in his hands. He fixes him with an even gaze. His next words are pointed and firm.

“But magic, herbs, and medicine can only meet you halfway. Your body has the natural instinct to heal itself, and the healthier you are, the faster and easier it is to recover.”

Caleb feels himself flush deep. The endless nights of skipping meals, forgoing sleep, contorting himself into stiff, focused positions in service of transcribing or poring over an avenue of study flash in his mind. He turns his eyes down, feeling much like a scolded schoolboy.

“It is what I have always done,” he says lamely, uselessly. Caduceus holds the bowl out for him to take, and watches with respectfully repressed mirth as Caleb chokes the foul liquid down in one gulp.

“I think you’ll find we all like you better when you’re physically, uh, hardier.”

 _I think you’ll find you like me better when I am using my intellect to its full capacity. It is the_ only _thing I have to offer, and I refuse to kneecap it for the sake of being able to shrug off a headache a little faster._ He keeps the thought inside, thinks it better suited to poison his guts than voice to Caduceus, who has never been anything but kind to him.

The man is cleaning up his makeshift doctor’s station, humming while he does so.

“What I just gave you should keep the pain away while making sure your head is clear. Your appetite should come back soon, so let me know if there’s any trouble keeping down food.”

“Thank you, Caduceus.” His voice is odd to his own ears. A familiar lump of guilt has worked its way into his throat, and it’s becoming hard to act otherwise.

“Of course.” And because Caduceus has an uncanny sense of others’ emotions, he immediately sweeps out of the room, bag in tow.

Caleb leans back into his pillow and cries. Not the great bellowing sobs of a child, but the quiet, restrained choke of an anguished adult. Hot tears slide from the corners of his eyes to intermingle in a disgusting union with mucus pooling onto his upper lip.

He is worthless. Too weak to hold his own in battle, too selfishly attached to cut ties and run and save these people the hassle of carrying his dead weight. He had ultimately disappointed everyone in his life before this, and it was truly insanity to think that this time would be any different.

Though his muscles protest, gentled maybe by the medicinal brew, he curls up on his side. Arms wrapped around himself like this, legs pulled up to his chest, he rocks and cries harder, feeling worse for it.

 _Wretched. You are a wretched man._ His own internal voice isn’t quieting, exactly, but it’s being slowly overtaken by another. Hard and smooth, like a gem of impeccable polish but lethal sharpness. It slides like a slick blade into his head.

 _Pathetic whelp._ There is no mistaking it. The intonation, the slithering quality of his vowels, the unmistakable and ever present distaste. 

This one is all Trent.

Caleb can hear a weak, scared sound leave his own mouth. Without his consent, a cascade of sense-memories flood his mind, entangling him in their wicked grasp.

Bowed against the floor of the room Trent most often utilized for punishment.

The touch of cool marble against his head as he kneeled. 

Trent verbally berating him, casting out his inventively cruel and mocking brand of humiliation before leaving him there with strict instruction to not move until he returned.

Hours passing. Caleb’s keen sense of time had never been used against him so harshly. But he was a dutiful pupil, desperate to get back in the good graces of his mentor, so still he stayed until the door opened and Master Ikithon walked in again.

 _Stand, boy._ And on shaking legs, back in unbelievable pain, neck horrifyingly stiff, Bren stood. He remembers how strange the blood in his body had felt, like it didn’t know how or where to settle. Trent certainly didn’t smile at him, but there was something hidden in the upturn of his brow that signaled surprise, and perhaps the barest essence of pride.

Caleb’s stomach feels loose and hot, awash with a curdle of fear and shame, but he was fully entwined with the sense-memory now and couldn’t help the swell of sick graditude as Bren basked in Trent’s good grace.

The paradoxical mix of emotions starts to become overwhelming and Caleb feels as if he is about to turn inside out. 

Instead, it feels as if a slim, hairline fracture cracks the top of his head open. And then, like sliding smoothly into a tub of ice water, he disconnects from himself and there is nothing. Numbness creeps over him in a static wave, and he feels the tears and snot and gasping and clutching stop. 

There is no relief, not because he’s fulfilled his desire to stop crying, but simply because there exists no ability _to_ desire within him anymore. Emotions, memories, thoughts. They all seem to be encased behind an impenetrable barrier, a wall of stone or ice two hundred feet thick. 

He feels his body go lax, his head list and roll against the soaked pillowcase. He stares unblinking at the bare wall of his room for an indeterminable amount of time.

~

He comes back to himself in his own body again. He is pressed against something warm and solid and for a moment he entertains the notion that he had somehow summoned Frumpkin in his stupor.

No, as he pries each one of his salt-slick eyelids open he sees he is not curled against Frumpkin, but Veth. His head is pillowed against her chest, his left arm wound across her stomach over the starchy fabric of her dress. It’s her current favorite, a lemon hued number that’s already direly needful of stitching in places.

Coming back from one of these episodes is an ordeal in itself. As his mind reconnects to his body, he slowly becomes aware of the feeling of his limbs, the placement of them. He feels a movement at his temple where Veth is softly scrubbing the skin there in a circle. Every so often the trim of her nails catches a lock of hair and swirls it around.

It’s so soothing, Caleb finds himself loath to make a sudden movement and alert her. Positioned as they are, he can turn his eyes downward and peek at the book she has nestled in her lap. The current page is describing the various uses of leaf and seed oils in alchemical work.

“This is an interesting book.” 

Veth jumps, instinctively waving her hands and flipping the book off the bed. She pushes at his shoulder so she can meet his eyes.

“Caleb! You’re awake! How are you feeling?” She brings both her hands up to flitter at his face, check his pulse, press against his forehead like she’s taking his temperature.

Caleb feels exhausted, if he were being honest. Not like he had spent the day with the Nein, or had done a few too many pull-ups (or one pull-up). It was more like someone had equipped him with a faucet head, stuck the thing right over his chest and turned the valve to let all the rotten ichor in his head and heart flow out like the churning upheaval at the end of a waterfall.

The muscles of his own self hatred are so overworked, they can’t bear any weight. At least for the moment. As a result, he feels a crooked sense of serenity.

“I feel okay, at the moment.” Veth’s face floods with relief.

“I didn’t know if you’d be up for dinner, but I brought you, here-” Veth twists around to grab at a wooden board sitting on his bedside table - perhaps one of the kitchen’s cutting boards - and settles it in his lap. 

On it is a hunk of bread, a few wedges of cheese, and a bushel of oblong shaped fruit specific to Rosohna that Caleb had neglected to learn the name of. He thinks he’s seen them growing in Caduceus’ rooftop garden.

As if on cue, his stomach lets out a furious noise. Veth presses her fingers to her lips.

“Why don’t you tell me what you are reading about?” Then he’s tearing chunks out of the soft bread and popping them into his mouth, nodding and humming at appropriate intervals as Veth describes _Oils in Alchemy: Finding the Correct Oil-Based Ingredient for Your Various Alchemical Works._

“That is quite the title.”

Veth grimaces. “Yeah, I should have taken it as a warning sign. Do you really need a million different ways to refer to the texture of an almond?”

“Those are academic types for you.”

“But I do need information about some things I want to do, and the drow lady at the apothecary said this was a good resource, so.”

“Yeah? What things?” At this, Veth lowers her eyes and slides her gaze to the side. It’s a common game between them, Caleb gently pressing at her plans and Veth rebuffing him.

“Well, if it works out, I’ll show you.” There are a few loose strands of hair escaping from the top of her left braid and she absently tucks them behind one pointed ear. 

Her hair is a deep chestnut color now, no longer an oily emerald that constantly hangs around her eyes. Caleb thinks that her current hairband is nice if not too resemblant of the tablecloth she had cut up to create it.

Her eyes, they’re different too. That electric yellow with its pinpricks of black is only a memory; now they’re big and sleepy and dark like her hair. Even the bushel of her eyebrows are a world apart from the picked-thin lines of before.

Her lips as well. Full and plump and hiding those neat, straight teeth that were, against all odds, more intriguing to him than her needled fangs. Caleb finds himself thinking of her mouth often. 

With a start and a shock of embarrassment he realizes that he’s stopped eating to stare at her. She had become absorbed in her book, but there was no excuse to be made for his gawking. 

A guilty part of himself, a part that he’s pushed down so far it has to be hiding somewhere behind his kidneys, wants to stare and to catalogue every tiny difference. He feels the most bizarre urgency to memorize and interalize her.

“Veth.” He says her name to get her attention, feels the way it parts and changes the shape of his lips as it exits his mouth. She looks appraisingly at what he’s managed to eat and nods.

“Could you go into the study, and underneath the table in the corner there is a small metal brazier. Would you bring it to me?”

The process of summoning Frumpkin is a simple one, and as he digs around in his component pouch for the incense, Veth takes the board, holding it in one hand and sweeping the excess crumbs off of the sheet with the other. He’s just dropping cloves into the brazier when she speaks from the doorway.

“In a little bit, we’re gonna get together in the happy room. You don’t have to come if you’re not feeling up to it, we’re just gonna have a few drinks, Beau found a winery and got this really expensive wine-”

“That sounds like fun,” he interrupts, thinking of a few other, more productive ways he could spend his evening.

But then she’s fully beaming at him and he knows he’ll be there.

“Okay, then. Summon your pussy. We’ll be waiting.” And then she’s gone, leaving Caleb to make an outraged, incredulous noise to no one.

An hour later, as the rich and tangy smell of the burning components has long filled the air of his room, Caleb snaps a final time and apparates Frumpkin into his arms. He buries his face into the fur at the cat’s flank, sighing. Frumpkin begins to purr at once, a deep, full noise that reverberates through Caleb’s face and makes him feel ticklish.

“I missed you, friend.” He will be plucking tabby hairs from his tongue for the rest of the night, but he can’t tear himself away yet. He begins to feel foolish for not doing this earlier, but before the feeling takes hold, Frumpkin makes a _mrrp!_ noise and he simply must attend to that first.

“Oh, you are such a kitty cat…”

~

For all the renovation and decoration the Xhorhaus has undergone at the hands of the Nein, Caleb doesn’t think any other room in the house has seen quite this level of attention paid to it. 

Many colorful tapestries are attached to the length of the ceiling, overlapping one another and creating the illusion of a vibrant, shifting ocean of fabric. A few of Jester’s paintings adorn the far wall, most of them depicting the rolling violet landscapes of Xhorhas. 

The center of the room is covered in cushions of all shapes and patterns, pillows of varying degrees of firmness and fullness, as well as a large, squat table of deep mahogany. 

Jester is here, crouched over Beau on the side of the table further from Caleb, pressing on different points along her spine. Beau is flat on her stomach underneath, prone on a line of downy pillows and making incoherent noises as Jester seems to put all her weight onto her hands. 

She had extended the service to Caleb once, an offer he could only furtively decline. She smiles at him now, big and bright, a little surprised and a lot delighted. A very _Jester_ expression, he thinks.

“Oh, hi Caleb!” He thinks he might hear a muffled _what’s up, Caleb_ from Beau. He gives a little wave in their direction, and to Fjord as well where he’s sitting cross-legged at the table, badly shuffling a deck of cards.

To his left, Caleb sees Veth, standing between an overturned shelf and a short bookcase. On closer inspection, some of the tomes have been pulled out and discarded in favor of sets of glassware and bottles of alcohol in their place. She’s picking at an imperfection in the grain of the wood, but looks up at him cheerily when he approaches.

“What’ll it be?” Veth asks, putting on a roughened voice of sorts, though Caleb can’t identify the reference. Accents have never been her strong suit.

“Just an ale for me, bartender.” She puts on a show of throwing the bottle from hand to hand, risking a single flip before giving it to him. She didn’t open it so he has to struggle to pop the cork from its head, but he doesn’t mind; he thinks she’s probably a third of the way to being fully drunk.

He ignores the protest in his joints to sit at the table, nursing his ale while Jester finishes wringing a number of pained noises from Beau.

“So, what are we playing?”

~

Spots dance along the line of his vision with the intensity of a midnight barroom jig. His head feels pillowy and light, distant from his body as if connected by a string instead of flesh and bone.

It’s hard to focus, his attention rapidly shifting from one stimulus to the next like an enraptured child watching a colorful stage play.

He’s drunk. Well, he’s not _hammered_ or _sloshed_. That honor would have to go to Beau and Fjord, respectively, as he watches them lean into each other and break into another fit of raucous laughter at something the other had said. It won’t be long until they’re weepily declaring their platonic affection for one another as drunks are wont to do.

Jester had retired earlier, the moment their drinking games had ventured into more serious intoxication. Caleb felt a pang of guilt watching her gather her sketchbook and slip out onto the balcony that connected the happy room to her and Beau's bedroom. 

Another shot of that atrocious grain alcohol had dutifully cleared the guilt out of his system.

And then Fjord had slapped down a pair of aces, and another shot was had. Beau had joined him that time, and they winced in the same measure as the vile liquid ran them down. Veth was watching with no short amount of merriment, sipping her goblet of sweet red wine.

Currently, Beau swings her head in a wide circle. Her mouth is twisted in a pained loop as she sets the now near-empty bottle somewhere out of sight next to her.

“Damn, that sucks!” She promptly slumps forward, her head hitting the table and sending their makeshift gambling chips flying.

“My buttons!” Veth screeches, flailing her hands out to either side in a futile attempt to catch the falling pieces. Fjord falls backward with the strength of his cackle, and Caleb wonders whose laughter is intermingling with Fjord’s until he realizes that it’s his own.

It’s been a long time since he’s laughed as freely as he has tonight. He wonders if it’s the strength of the drink, the company he’s keeping, or the fact of his episode earlier wringing him out so cleanly. Maybe it’s all three.

Fjord sits up and shakes the shit out of Beau’s shoulder.

“Come on, drunky. I think it’s bedtime.”

Beau makes a noise that sounds like _fuck you_ and _hell no_ mixed together. She slides herself bodily to the left, knocking the rest of the cards off the table and depositing Veth’s half-full goblet of wine directly onto the fabric of her dress. 

“Ah!” Veth shrieks and jumps up, wiping at the setting stain. From her now supine position on the floor, Beau mumbles out an apology, but it seems like she’s already ninety percent of the way to being fully asleep.

“You know, that’s a good idea,” Fjord says, grabbing a loose pillow from somewhere to his right and reclining onto the floor. It seems he is also asleep within a few seconds. Caleb looks again at Veth and she’s there to meet his eye with a shrewd look.

“You’re not gonna pass out on me, are you?”

“I hope not.” 

She smiles at that. He looks at the wine stain on her dress.

“I’m sorry, _schatz_. It is times like these that I wish I knew _Prestidigitation_.”

She _tsks_.

“Nothing some vinegar can’t solve. I think I even remember where Deucy keeps it...” She holds her hand out to him and it’s second nature to take it and haul himself up to standing. She begins to pull him along, and he is secretly thankful for the obvious excuse to continue their touch.

She leads him down the winding tower stairs. Their pace is slowed by their drunkenness. When one threatens to teeter over, the other pulls their arm to hold them steady.

Veth stops short as they reach the bottom, nearly causing Caleb’s knee to knock into her hip.

“Now there’s an idea!” She says, walking over to the hot tub and hauling herself up on its stone ledge.

“I never took you for a fan of this place.” In fact, if he recalls, Veth had merely dipped her feet in the last time they were here together.

“I’m getting a little better. I just have to adjust it to what I like.” She operates the simple machinery connected to the water basin to drain the tub to near emptiness. When she deems it satisfactory, Caleb peers over the side and sees that there’s only about a half foot of water left. Veth hops in, letting out a surprised yelp as her feet touch down.

“Yeesh! Could you work a little of your magic here?” The stone and tile beneath the tub is easy enough to warm with the touch of his hand and the work of _Produce Flame_. When he raises back up, Veth is beaming at him, now fully sitting in the shallow water.

“Thanks, Lebby!” Her sweet nickname for him catches him off guard and he can feel a blush creep up his neck. She beckons him with one hand and he steps into the basin shoes, pants and all. He sits unceremoniously.

It feels nice, lingering here. The warm air radiating off the heated surface of the water blankets him, exacerbating his drunkenness pleasantly. Veth is leaning back, bearing her weight on her palms and facing the high ceiling with her eyes closed.

Once again, Caleb is struck by her. The curve of her body, the softness of her face and her arms. The thickness of her legs, and the sturdiness of her build. The new way her eyebrows pinch together when she’s irritated or stressed, along with the familiar yet different slope of her mouth when she speaks.

“You always seem surprised.”

“Hm?” He hopes she hasn’t been talking and he’s just missed it.

“I mean, you made this. But you always seem surprised at it.” She’s fixing him with a soft, inscrutable gaze from the depths of her eyes. She’s speaking so casually it takes too long for Caleb to realize she’s talking about her _body_.

“I am-” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“Don’t be sorry, Caleb. I rather like being looked at. But it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

She’s right. But molding her shape with the transmogrification spell was different; it was clinical, technical to a fault. He was in a high state of stress as well, focused singularly and intensely on giving her the form she wanted. 

The form she deserved.

“It is different,” he manages to say after a pregnant pause. It’s a wholly insufficient way to summarize his feelings, but she nods sagely. He somehow feels more naked under her gaze than if he had stripped himself of all clothing minutes before.

“It _is_ different.” There’s something tragic in her tone that roughly chips at his heart. He knows that she’s speaking about something else. He has felt it too. 

“ _Ja_ ,” he says simply, forcing himself to look away. It’s too intense, and he feels if she looks too long she might see into his soul. If she were to reject what she would find there, and she certainly would, his heart might shatter entirely.

He hears the soft swish of the water parting at her movement, and she’s next to him then, still facing him with her leg flush to his. The dark stain on her dress shifts beneath the water.

“I miss you.” 

_I have not gone anywhere._ It would be so easy to say, to keep up this joking pretense, to pretend like there is no difference in the way he’s been treating her in the weeks since her transformation.

How differently he’s treated her since Felderwin, even. Allowing himself to focus on such thoughts sets his teeth on edge. He much prefers to keep them at a far distance from his already thorny, muddled sense of self.

He doesn’t know what to say that won’t come off as utterly piteous, so he instead moves to clasp his fingers over her hands where they lay in her lap. Their eyes meet and Veth surges forward to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him into an embrace.

She drifts over to swing a leg over his until she’s fully seated in his lap. They can press together tighter like this and they do. She nuzzles her face into his neck and he wraps his arms around her waist to pull her closer. He curls bodily around her small frame, like a vine around a trellis.

How long has it been since they sat together like this?

 _Far too long_ , he thinks as he breathes deep against her hair. Her fresh, woodsy scent still lingers in his nose as he remembers it, tinged now with the rich aroma of the wine she’s drunk.

He lays the two images of her in his mind atop one another, hopes that with enough time and effort they will blend into one congruous image. His feelings for her are harder to combine, and they dance together like oil and water.

He acknowledges his greed freely; that he has taken a motherly comfort from her protective nature as well as the support of her as a close friend in her implicit trust of him.

He feels the fullness of her breasts against his chest, and how she is pressed bare against the cloth of his pants underneath the buoyant splay of her dress. He thinks of how easily his greed could morph the unending bounty of her person into something lustful.

He would never let it. In fact, he might rather die than let himself transgress against her so.

“Do you remember that night we spent in that empty horse stall outside of Deastok?” Her words tickle where they brush over his skin.

“I do. You spent the night convinced the proprietor of the home was going to kill you while we slept.” He had been a shifty guy, too pointed his tone while discussing the option of homing the two of them for a night. Caleb had offered an extra five silver - their last five silver - to tide his opinion and pull his eye from where Nott stood curled behind his leg.

“I could see it in his eyes! He was ready to chop me up and feed to those horses!”

“Oh, I would not have let that happen,” Caleb says assuredly. And he wouldn’t have; if that man had tried anything remotely close to harming her, he would then enjoy the remainder of his eternity as ashes floating in the breeze through the branches of the Cyrengreen.

“I know. But you told me a story to calm me down, something Zemnian from your childhood about a witch that ate children.”

Ah. That particular folktale. He had modified it slightly, fabricated some of the parts that had been worn away with time. He thinks he might have slipped more than a few personal details into the narrative, but they knew so little about one another then.

“Why do you bring it up?”

She goes quiet against him. He can feel where she’s absently tracing patterns across the damp collar of his tunic. When she speaks, her voice is low and definitive.

“That morning was when I decided that I wasn’t gonna disappear into the night if something went wrong. That I would stay.”

Caleb feels a rush of affection that morphs into a mournful sort of melancholy, feels as if it’s going to pour out of his eyes and nose and mouth to fill the tub around them. 

He thinks of when it was that he decided to stay and comes up empty handed. From the moment of their introduction, the feeling of needing her has never waned. 

He tells her as much of this as he dares through the stroke of his fingertips against her back and the athrythmic pattern his breathing takes over the crown of her hair.

“I am glad you stayed, _liebling_.”

She pulls back to look up at him then. Her eyes are shining dangerously. They have a strange quality to them, seem to waver like the liquid in an overfull cup. She speaks in a slow whisper, every word deliberate and painful sounding.

“I don’t want this to end. I miss my kid. I miss my home and my life and I still don’t want this to end. _What’s wrong with me_?” She shrugs helplessly as her voice breaks at the last word. Caleb feels his heart clench.

“You live a life of significance. You have done more in a few short years than most do in their entire lives. It has brought you riches, plenty of fine things. Even a modicum of fame.”

“That stuff doesn’t matter to me, not really. Family matters to me.”

“Then your path is set.” He’s accepted this as fact long ago, that one day she would pack her things and settle somewhere with Yeza to raise Luc. Caleb has done his best to suppress the urge to feel wounded in regards to this thing so distinct, so immutable as to be almost a universal truth.

“Caleb. You don’t understand.” She’s imploring now, and he feels as though she can see _him_. 

Not the scorched crust of his battered and beaten personality, or even the trembling and pathetic child trapped within that same shell. She’s looking past Caleb, past Bren, into the eyes and soul of a man he’s only just started to acknowledge the existence of. 

A lance of fear and desire nearly pierces him clean through as he needs desperately to know how long she’s seen this man, what he’s like and what he needs to be whole again.

She’s right. He doesn’t understand.

“What do you mean?”

She lays her hands, small and smooth and firm, on either side of his jaw. They are so close their noses are almost touching.

“ _You’re_ my family, too. I don’t want to leave you.” Her tears spill over then, running down the length of her cheek. He swipes his thumb under each of her eyes in turn, cupping her face with his other hand. When he speaks, his voice wavers like the flame on a candle’s wick.

“You will not have to leave me.” To which of the two of them this is meant to reassure he cannot say. She desperately shakes her head. He casts his gaze over the entirety of her and feels again that same urge to memorize it. 

Her eyes open and meet his. They are pure warmth, bright with shed tears and something else he can’t identify. It reminds him of the time he had helped her make breakfast. The way she had smiled at him afterward and the yawning, cavernous feeling in the pit of his stomach it had caused.

It’s impossible to dismiss now. His back is against the wall and she is in his lap, _looking_ at him again. They are still so close.

“I love you, Caleb.” She says it in a hushed tone, their breath intermingling as it seems she’s speaking directly to the beat of his bloodied heart. He curtails his instinct to deny, to repel, just this once. He owes her as much.

“I love you too, Veth.” For as accomplished and near pathological the liar he is, it is the easiest truth of all to speak. He lets her name - her _real_ name - linger on his tongue, thinks that if it takes the rest of his life to become used to saying it that would be okay with him.

She comes closer still somehow, a hair’s width between them now. His eyes begin to cross and he’s forced to close them, the rich tan of her skin and long curl of her eyelashes echoing in his vision like sunspots. 

His heart is at a gallop so loud she must be able to hear it. He can feel his blood, hot and rushing. When she speaks, her lips just brush against his.

“How do you say it in Zemnian?”

His brain hiccups and slows to a crawl, native and new language clashing together in his head. The water is cool now against his legs, though they could be seated atop an erupting volcano for all he cares.

He speaks, eventually. Moving against her so - however miniscule the motion - is nearly too much.

“ _Ich liebe dich_.” The words are nearly a revelation, a prayer at the temple of their affection. 

She leans forward and presses her lips to his. He tilts his head and pushes back against her slowly.

It’s as natural as breathing.

If Caleb had any notion of this kiss being like any of their previous, he’s quickly disavowed of it. This is something much deeper. Much hungrier. The yawning chasm is spreading, filling his insides and expanding to his absolute limit, like it will destroy him without compunction should it so choose.

So he bends his neck further, and takes. He drinks of her mouth generously, threading his hands through the places where her braids have loosened in her hair from the steam of the water and the excitement of the night. It’s soft, a little oily, and he relishes the feeling of it on the tips of fingers.

Her lips are plush and wet, perfectly formed against his own. He finds himself opening up to her gentle, insistent prodding. He lets her curiously assault his senses, reveling in her rapidly waning restraint.

She shifts and he suddenly becomes aware of her body. The weight of her legs, her stomach, her chest against his own is overwhelming. It feels as if every deadend, weakened nerve in his skin was being rejuvenated by her touch.

He so badly wants to feel her. His hands wander to her collarbones, where the thick straps of her dress lay twisted on her skin. She pulls back then, breaking the two of them apart like the snap of a wishbone. She’s breathing heavily, a deep flush staining her face and chest.

Her eyes are wild, a little feral. She almost looks like Nott. The thought sends a jolt down his spine. He mentally pinches himself. 

The incongruent images are back, laid atop one another like discolored pieces of sea glass. One green, one yellow. Her eyes are still on him, liquid dark and the maddening, indeterminate emotion still deep within them.

“The water’s cold.”

Caleb blinks once. Twice. He sits up a little straighter.

“ _Ja_. So it is.”

The walk back to his bedroom is a blur. The soft _pat pat pat_ of their wet footsteps on the stone floor play like raindrops against the roof of his head.

~

Caleb is a methodical man. 

On top of his dresser made of peculiar purple wood, he lays each piece of clothing on top of one another.

He is sleeping in his room in the Xhorhaus.

_(First, his trousers. Sleek black slim-legged things. They’re soaked.)_

No. He is standing in his room in the Xhorhaus. Standing and thinking.

_(Then, his undershirt. Plain, fraying and white. It peels from his chest like a second skin.)_

Thinking of peace, the tenuous tightwire of safety and prosperity among the corrupt den of despotic rule.

_(Next, his socks. He doesn’t have the luxury, nor the need. They’d be soaked as well, anyway.)_

Of Essek, a mirror up to traitorous nature. His heart beats sorrowfully for him.

_(After that, he wrings his tunic out, laying the fabric out across the wood to dry.)_

Of his parents. Always his parents.

_(Done with this, the spread of clothing is sure to dry by morning. It better. It’s the only set he has.)_

Of the rest of the Nein. Specifically, the state of Beauregard and Fjord’s necks as they undoubtedly have stayed passed out on the floor of the happy room.

_(He reaches instinctually for his component pouch and book holsters, huffs a short laugh when he realizes they are not on his person. They are on his bedside table, within reaching distance if he were to somehow need them in the night.)_

Of Veth. Of course, of course, of course Veth. She occupies his skin nearly as he does, in his blood viciously grinning at strangers, in his veins laughing uproariously and tumbling gleefully into battle. She’s in his bed now, sound asleep. His solitary blanket is wrapped around the curve of her body, one exposed, dark shoulder the only betrayer of her nakedness.

_(He walks around the perimeter of the room, twisting in fine looping gestures a line of thin silver thread along the walls and windows, taking care around the closed door.)_

_Alarm_ in place, he looks at where she lay sleeping. More memorization, this time the gentle curve of her slack mouth, the toss of her arm over her head.

He snuffs the flame of the candle with a flick of his wrist, notices how the artful and delicate lines of her tattoo glow and shimmer in the dark.

He lays next to her and the response is immediate. She rolls and curls forward into his chest, wrapping her arms around him. He places his hands loosely around her back, rests his head against the top of hers to inhale her scent again.

The position is painfully familiar, yet entirely new. The flickering green-yellow sea glass almost seems to focus, but fades into a blurred outline yet again.

Everything is awful and perfect. Caleb knows more than anything that the guilt lays in wait, lining the edges of his consciousness with an infinite loop of razor sharp traps, the ones you would use to catch a particularly large and ferocious beast. 

Yes, he knew that maybe as soon as tomorrow morning he’d take his first deep breath of the day and land his foot squarely in the middle of one. It would tear at his flesh, gouge him of blood and muscle and sinew, snap his bones.

No, the guilt was never far. Kissing her like that? The consequences were inescapable. Still, he can’t say why he’s been allowed this odd, timeless pocket of existence wherein he doesn’t feel the weight of his actions bearing down upon him so. 

He’s thankful, in the way a convicted criminal might feel thankful to his gallows tender for allowing him one last sip of booze.

He feels Veth shift in her sleep, squash her face against his chest. He stops thinking, allows his breathing to sync with hers. 

The yawning sensation in his stomach grows, has been growing, has not stopped growing. Soon, it envelops the both of them completely. 

They lay entwined in the living, breathing creature of his love, his anguish.

Caleb sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> this was titled "basically a caleb character study at this point" in my drafts
> 
> to be continued? to be continued. my widobrave feelings are complex and varied and sometimes sexy. other cr fanfic coming very soon because my multishipper ass cannot and will not be contained. 
> 
> title is from mariner's apartment complex aka the most widobrave song ive ever heard in my entire life.
> 
> thanks for reading my work by the way. comments and kudos make me feel alive. okay love you goodbye


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